ThirdLove: The app that will make you want to burn your bras

Two hours I sat in a cotton candy-pink dressing room, subjecting myself to round after round of torture perpetuated by a $300 stack of 83 percent nylon.

I did not walk out of Victoria’s Secret that day with a newfound sexiness and appreciation for my raging womanhood. I walked out because I was afraid I might set fire to a stack of strapless push-up bras.

Even among women who balk at traditional gender roles, there’s one ultra-feminine activity that cannot be avoided: bra shopping. I would rather stand in line at DPS for six hours during flu season than dig through piles of made-in-China torture devices created to add two cup sizes while robbing you of your will to live.

The places that sell these dignity-thieving Hell cups make the whole situation all the more unbearable. Nothing makes me want to take my shirt off in public quite like fluorescent lighting and a club remix of Hootie and the Blowfish. To the middle-age white men undoubtedly responsible for the brassiere-industrial complex: You suck. And your bras suck, too.

Thankfully there’s a NASA scientist working to ensure we never again have to let a former high school cheerleader in an ill-fitting pantsuit man-handle our funbags in a pink striped torture chamber. Yeah, that’s right: NASA scientist. To infinity and beyond, ladies.

Developed by a team of engineers led by a senior scientist with the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center, ThirdLove’s app promises to ensure you never have to try on a bra again. Just put on a tank top and take two pictures of yourself (while following the app’s detailed instructions) and it will render three-dimensional data to calculate your precise measurements.

ThirdLove manufactures the bras that you’ll soon be able to order right from your phone. The system is currently in beta, but you can reserve a spot in the chest revolution at ThirdLove.com.

Now, if we could just ban the word “panty” from the English lexicon, we might finally bring some civility to the underpants-buying experience.